1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to publishing electronic documents over a network, such as a wide area network, the World Wide Web, etc.; more specifically, the invention relates to controlling access to documents accessible over a network.
2. Description of Related Art
Publishing electronic documents on a network such as a wide area network is known in the art. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,870,552 issued to Dozier. These systems are usually client-server systems in which clients make requests to the server, and the server generates responses. Client-server platforms are used for authoring of documents, content-based indexing of documents, retrieval of documents, management and control of documents, and support for developing form-driven interactive services.
In typical client-server document systems, a document is stored on a server from which a user accesses, edits, and/or restores the document. While providing users with an opportunity to perform various tasks on a document stored on a server, such systems and the access to documents thereon lack important security measures. For example, a document stored on a server without some security mechanism (e.g., a security key) does not prevent unscrupulous users from accessing the document. Moreover, because documents may reside on a server for an indefinite period of time, there is an increased risk that an unauthorized user may gain access to a document. Currently, there is no system that ensures that only authorized users gain access to a document published on a network and that prevents documents from being maintained for long periods of time on a server. It is, therefore, desirable to have a system that uses security measures to prevent unauthorized individuals from gaining access to documents residing on a server and that reduces the risk of unauthorized access.